The cult following, especially among young people,
of the Douglas Adams novels — and the radio and television series they
spawned — will probably guarantee the profitability of the new feature-length
film based on his signature book, The
Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Without that large and presumably eager
audience, however, I doubt that the adaptation would attract a public
commensurate with the historic reputation of the novels, which, judging by the
film at least, must be what is known as an acquired taste.
An odd combination of science fiction, fantasy,
parody, and satire, the picture proceeds through numerous episodes of
exaggerated and sophomoric silliness horribly similar to the late and
unlamented Monty PythonShow of years ago. (Personally, for
British humor, I’ve always preferred the cheeky, lower-class vitality of Benny
Hill, with all his corny, exuberant vulgarity, to the laborious whimsy of those
vapid Oxford twits beating an absurdity into a pulp). Based on an acceptably
outrageous premise, Hitchhiker’s plot
manipulates its characters through sequences of increasing absurdity until it
reaches a surprisingly predictable downbeat conclusion.
A rich, cultured voice introduces the situation and
intermittently reads from what must be the guidebook of the title, informing us
that humans constitute the third smartest inhabitants of Earth, behind the
dolphins and another, even higher species revealed at the end (don’t ask).
After attempting for years to warn humanity of the impending destruction of the
planet at countless aquatic shows, the dolphins finally depart en masse, singing the compelling “So
Long and Thanks for the Fish,” possibly the funniest moment in the movie.
A visiting alien, Ford Prefect (Mos Def) warns his
friend, the pathetic loser Arthur Dent (Martin Freeman), that Earth will be
obliterated to make room for some sort of intergalactic bypass, so he and
Arthur hitch a ride on a Vogon ship and their adventures begin.
Those adventures consist of a series of encounters
on several planets with a number of grotesque creatures, while they attempt to
find the meaning of everything (it’s the number 42, but don’t ask) and escape
the pursuing Vogons, sluggish, corpulent monsters who torture captives by
reading them wretched poetry in juicy, clotted upper-class Brit.
At one point Ford and Arthur land on the spaceship
of the moronic president of the galaxy, whose two heads make him twice as
stupid as anyone else, and who talks very like George W. Bush. They bounce
around the galaxy on that ship, accompanied by Arthur’s love interest, Trillian
(Zooey Deschanel) and a robot suffering severe depression.
Many of the episodes exist merely to display some
extreme (and sometimes extremely fatuous) concept — the Improbability Drive,
which takes them around the galaxy, for example, for some reason at one point
temporarily transforms the space travelers into yarn puppets (again, don’t
ask), and the Arthur figure, suffering from motion sickness, vomits a large wad
of multicolored strings. In perhaps the most disquieting moment, a character
named Humma Kavula (John Malkovich) who consists of a head and shoulders
propelled by innumerable skinny metal legs, removes his glasses, which turn out
to be his eyes.
The weapon that enables the hitchhikers and their
companions to defeat an army of Vogons is the point-of-view gun, which changes
the enemy’s point of view to one’s own; wielded by a depressed robot, it’s not
only literary but lethal.
Strangely, the accumulation of absurdities and
grotesques rapidly diminishes in what the writers and director apparently
believe is fascination, and in combination with the fatuous characters, soon
grows colossally dull: Repeated often enough, even the bizarre turns bland.
The essentially insipid actors accentuate that
blandness through their unvarying adherence to some primitive characterization,
repeating uninteresting dialogue over and over and maintaining a simpleminded
consistency of expression and gesture. The alleged star, Martin Freeman, in
particular lacks anything resembling presence and certainly displays little
more than a victim’s passivity whether the scene demands action or emotion.
Nobody in the whole picture performs with any
distinction at all, with the possible exception of Sam Rockwell as the galactic
president, but the consistency of his hyperbolic style grows as annoying as the
vapid underplaying of the rest of the cast. The answer to the meaning of the
universe may indeed be 42, but the route to that answer runs through some other
film, or perhaps even in a galaxy far away…
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (PG), starring Martin
Freeman, Zooey Deschanel, Mos Def, Sam Rockwell, Alan Rickman, John Malkovich;
directed by Garth Jennings. Brockport
Strand, Canandaigua Theatres, Cinemark Tinseltown, Geneseo Theatres, Greece
Ridge 12, Eastview Cinema, Henrietta 18, Pittsford Cinema, Vintage Drive-In
This article appears in May 4-10, 2005.
